


The Power Behind the Nothing

by PyrrhaIphis



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: 1984 dystopia, Conspiracy, Gen, Secret Organizations, Surveillance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 00:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8122978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrrhaIphis/pseuds/PyrrhaIphis
Summary: Remember those two guys who were with Curt when he hung up the phone?  Well, meet some of their co-workers.  They're scrambling in the immediate aftermath of Arthur's question to Tommy Stone.





	

“People who have no dreams are easy to control.” —the G’mork

 

***

 

            “Damage control?”

            “Working the crowd now.”

            “Preliminary reports suggest no problem.  Most of them have never even heard of Brian Slade.”

            “We need guarantees, not suggestions.”

            “Yes, sir!”

            “Sir, the subject is headed in the direction of Threat A!  Should we neutralize?”

            “Too much risk.  Maintain surveillance.  How is the asset?”

            “The asset is irate, sir.”

            “Sedate him.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Sir, the director wants a report!”

            Thompson had to fight the unprofessional urge to grimace.  The director always seemed to want updates at the worst possible times.  As a civilian, the director had no understanding of just how delicate these operations were, how time-sensitive every action and reaction could be.

            But Thompson hadn’t graduated to this post from the mundane world of the ordinary intelligence business to be unprofessional, so he duly went to the phone to make his report.  But even as he pressed the lone red button that would connect the line straight to the director, he kept a close eye on the monitors lining the walls of the control room.

            The current subject of surveillance was a reporter of English citizenship, who had undergone all the proper procedures of immigration to receive permission to reside and work in the United States.  He could be deported, but in order to avoid an international incident, there would have to be proof that he had broken the law.  Currently, he was passing through a drinking establishment, moving directly towards Threat A.  The worst possible time for Thompson to be distracted…

            “Thompson reporting.”

            “Status?”

            “The subject appears to have learned the asset’s secret,” Thompson had to admit, “but he shouldn’t be able to accomplish anything with it.  We’ll always be one step ahead.”

            “Who told him?”

            “I suspect he simply figured it out on his own,” Thompson replied.  “He was not permitted unsupervised access to either of the threats.”

            “Can he be safely eliminated?”

            “Not without due caution.  The media are protective of their own.  If he is simply silenced, they _will_ cast about for someone to blame, and it’s always possible they might inadvertently approach the truth.”

            “What course of action do you plan to follow?” the director asked.

            “We may have to discard the asset.”

            “No.”  The director’s response was frighteningly firm.  “The asset is not replaceable.”

            “But…there are others who could serve his function,” Thompson pointed out.  “Ones who don’t have this sort of associated risk.”

            “The asset stays.”

            “Understood.”

            The director hung up without another word, and Thompson was able to return his attention to the subject’s activities.  He was currently conversing with Threat A, but it seemed harmless enough:  they were discussing a piece of jewelry in Threat A’s possession.

            Threat A soon left the bar, making Thompson’s staff breathe a collective—if metaphorical—sigh of relief, but he knew better than to think they were yet in the clear.  And, sure enough, the subject soon followed Threat A out of the bar and into the nearby subway station.  While they were awaiting the next train, the subject began to converse with Threat A.  The conversation was almost _too_ innocuous, and both men had shifty looks on their faces—as far as Thompson could tell through the surveillance cameras—as if they were actively hiding some great secret from all those around them.

            “What’s the next train through the station?” Thompson asked, without taking his eyes off the monitors.  “Does it lead to either of their residences?”

            “Negative, sir.  It is not the train they would use to return to their domiciles, or to the subject’s place of work.”

            “Good.  Send in two operatives to follow them onto their trains.  We don’t want anything happening while they’re in our blind spot.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            While Thompson watched the monitors, a subway train pulled into the station, but neither the subject nor the threat moved towards it; they continued their conversation uninterrupted.

            As the doors began to close, Threat A suddenly shoved the subject onto the train, leaping after him at the last second.  The train sped away from the station, carrying both men with it.

            “Don’t we have anyone on that train?!” Thompson bellowed, even though he knew they didn’t.  “Why don’t we have security cameras on subway trains yet?!”

            Countless shouts echoed back and forth through the control room, but none actually addressed Thompson’s questions.

            “Is the surveillance equipment set up in the subject’s domicile?” he asked, shaking his head.

            “Yes, sir, they just finished installing it.”

            “Switch it on.  And send someone to board that train at the next stop!”

            One of the monitors flickered and changed from showing another view of the subway station to showing a small basement apartment, furnished primarily with what appeared to be discarded office furniture.

            Thompson found himself cursing the director’s timidity.  When they had him in their control, they should have knocked Threat A unconscious and planted a wire on him.  Then they wouldn’t have to scramble around like this.  But the director had thought that was ‘going too far.’  Of _course_ the director had thought that.  Timidity was one of the defining characteristics of civilians.

            All too soon, one of his subordinates made another report.  “Sir, the intercept team reports that both the subject and Threat A got into a taxi and departed the station.  They’re in pursuit now.”

            “Turn on the surveillance for the subject’s place of employment, Threat A’s domicile, and Threat B’s domicile and place of employment.”

            The monitors quickly changed to display a newspaper office nearly devoid of people, an empty apartment, a night club with very few patrons, and Threat B sitting in her apartment drinking while watching television.

            However, even by car it would take the subject some time to reach any of those destinations, so Thompson turned the primary focus of his attention to other things.  Before their current surveillance project was hastily begun, the director had instructed Thompson to look over the current slogans.  It had been theorized that some of the asset’s songs were more popular than others because their messages, while not consciously assimilated by the audience, were more favorable or better integrated into the song.

            Thompson didn’t doubt the aural engineers folding the message into the music.  They were experts; no one was going to hear that extra layer folded into the background noise, not consciously.  But perhaps some of the messages needed upgrading.

            “WORK.  CONSUME.  OBEY.” “KNOW YOUR PLACE.”  “CONFORM.”

            All standards.  No room for improvement.

            “EMBRACE THE PAST.”

            Perhaps not the best way of expressing it.  It could evoke a sense of nostalgia for the pre-Reynolds past, instead of a yearning for simplicity and pure conservative ethics.

            “FEAR THE STRANGER.”  “SHUN THOSE WHO ARE DIFFERENT.”

            Good messages, but they could be a bit pithier.  Particularly the latter message, which was—after all—one of the most important of them.

            “KEEP YOUR FEET ON THE GROUND.”  “FAILURE IS A PUNISHMENT.”  “WORSHIP HIM.”

            Vague at best.  The sentiments were good, but re-working was definitely in order.

            “2 + 2 = 5”

            Thompson was floored.  Who in the world introduced such a bizarre, broken and downright _incorrect_ message?!  He scratched it off the list with extreme prejudice.

            Clearly, the messages _did_ need work.  He began to jot down notes about what each message was lacking, so that the writers would know what they needed to do.

            He hadn’t quite finished when the monitor showed the door to Threat A’s apartment being opened.  The surveillance subject entered the apartment, with a wide grin on his face, no doubt anticipating the subversion he thought they were about to get away with.  Threat A followed him inside, closed the door, and fastened the chain.  He had barely finished doing so before the surveillance subject inexplicably started kissing him.

            “What…what are they doing?”

            “Sir, can we turn this off now?”

            “That’s what they want us to do,” Thompson replied, shaking his head.  “Threat A obviously understands that he’s always under surveillance, and he thinks that if they put on this little act, we’ll stop watching.”

            “I really don’t think it’s an act, sir.”

            By this point, the surveillance subject and Threat A had both removed not only their coats but also their shirts.  That, however, proved nothing.  Any man who ever went swimming in a public place was accustomed to being shirtless in front of others.

            “They’ll begin discussing their plans to evade us soon enough,” Thompson assured his subordinates.

            The two men pictured on the monitor went into the bedroom of Threat A’s apartment, where they removed their remaining garments and began engaging in an act of sodomy.

            “They’re definitely not faking it, sir.”

            Thompson didn’t want to admit that they truly did not seem to be merely pretending.  That would be too much like admitting he had made a mistake.  And he had _not_ made a mistake.  As soon as their carnal sin was ended, they would begin discussing their subversive plots.  And then it would be fortunate that Thompson had not been fooled.

            “Please, sir, can we turn it off now?  This is disgusting.”

            “We must remain vigilant,” Thompson said firmly.  “Besides, this footage might prove useful in removing either party as a threat.”

            “At least let us turn off the sound.  I can’t stand listening to this!”

            “Such an unprofessional statement is beneath us all,” Thompson reprimanded his subordinate.  Then he turned up the sound coming from the monitors, flooding the control room with the unsettling grunts and groans being produced in Threat A’s bedroom.  “To remind you that the pursuit of justice is sometimes ugly,” Thompson told his staff, glowering at them.  Let them try to argue with him, and see what happened!

            As soon as the grunting, groaning and grinding stopped, Threat A collapsed into his bed, and began snoring almost instantly.  The surveillance subject laid down beside him, cuddled up, and closed his eyes, as if in sleep.  Perplexed, Thompson turned the volume back down to the normal level.  Presumably, Threat A had simply worn himself out with his sexual perversion—that he had such proclivities was well documented in his case file—and would resume their subversive plotting as soon as he awoke.

            Still…perhaps the director should be consulted.  Thompson once again lifted the telephone’s receiver, and pressed the red button for a direct line.  “Thompson reporting,” he said, as soon as the director picked up.

            “Has something happened?”

            “Yes.  The surveillance subject and Threat A have…ah…”  Unprofessional though it was, Thompson couldn’t find a good way to describe the situation to the director, who was, after all, merely an untrained civilian, unused to such brutal desecrations of the human body.

            The director chuckled slightly.  “Given Threat A’s tastes and the surveillance subject’s appearance, I think I can guess what they’re doing.”

            Thompson cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “We might be able to drive the surveillance subject out of the country with the video footage or still images.”

            “Only if he has the decency to be ashamed of his actions.”  The tone of the director’s voice indicated just how unlikely that was.

            “What should we do, then?”

            “For the moment, continue surveillance and wait.  Perhaps we’ll drive him back to England.  Or perhaps we’ll give him the designation Threat C and allow him to remain.”  A slight pause.  “If that happens, he will have to exit the journalistic profession, of course.”

            “Of course,” Thompson agreed.  “Perhaps that should be arranged either way.”

            “Yes, good idea.  Do it.”

            “I’ll get on it right away, director.”

            As soon as he hung up the phone, Thompson went to work plotting the best way to rob Threat C of his mediocre print career.  Should it be subtle, to drive him into a nice, malleable despair, or should it be brutal and obvious, to teach him to love, honor and obey the system?

            Well, he had a full night to plan and decide.

            The important thing was that these three threats would never use their secret knowledge of the asset to break the system.

            Because the system was bigger than all of them.

            The system was invincible.

            The system was unbreakable.

            The system was eternal.

            And anyone who tried to prove otherwise would meet a terrible fate.  As justice demanded.


End file.
